First Renters

[Samantha1716]

We just opened up our home on Airbnb and our first renters arrived this past weekend. For the first 3 nights they were ideal with no issues but then on the last night they started showing red flags. Sending me pages of text messages with feedback of what was missing and what we could do better. Most would appreciate this feedback but then her texts turned into asking for favors and how to book direct rather than with Airbnb. When i told her we prefer to do everything through Airbnb she started texting me that her husband got injured by a tiny nail that was in the railing on the staircase and then she would text me that the toilet handle was all of a sudden broken. 

This is our first experience with guests so I just wanted to see what advice some more experienced hosts may have for us on how to handle her. They are checking out today but now I am debating on already pulling the home from Airbnb. Are they all like this?

[Vivek143]

Hi @Samantha1716 

First of all, congratulations on your first guests and welcome to hosting! 🎉

What you're describing is actually something most experienced hosts have gone through at least once, and the fact that you handled it calmly and kept everything on platform shows really good instincts for someone just starting out.

The late feedback, the direct booking request, and then the sudden "issues" after you said no is a pattern the community knows well. You didn't panic, you didn't cave, and that's genuinely the right move.

A few friendly tips going forward:

Do a quick walkthrough of your space today and document everything with photos, not because anything is necessarily wrong, but just so you always have a fresh baseline after every checkout. It becomes second nature quickly and gives you total peace of mind.

For future guests, a short welcome message at the start of their stay inviting them to flag anything early goes a long way. It naturally filters out the last-minute feedback pile-ons because genuinely good guests will speak up early when invited to.

And please don't let this one experience shake your confidence in hosting. The vast majority of guests are respectful, appreciative, and honestly just happy to have a comfortable, clean space. The ones like this stand out precisely because they're the exception not the rule.

You've got this, and it only gets easier from here! 🏡✨

Let me know if that helps 👍🏻 

[Greystone0]

Hi   - I feel for your situation. It's difficult to stomach some guests and a real bummer that this is your first guest. Usually the bad experiences are somewhat smoothed over by the good guest experiences. 

Here's some thoughts:

- What type of background questions did you ask for this guest? If you don't have a list of guest vetting questions ready, you should. Include the basics like: who is coming, why coming to ensure a good fit. 

- and in hindsight, if a guest was texting me a list of things missing and such, I would just ask if they would like to go ahead and check out early and offer a refund for whatever the time is left.  

- also in hindsight, texts versus platform messaging, should be avoided, generally speaking.  A few questions via text is totally reasonable, "do you have extra 'whatever'" or 'the battery for the smoke detector just started going off' or 'what's the best place for brunch' and so on.

- it seems that they may have identified you as 'new' and are taking advantage of the situation. 

- and no, they are not all like this. For us our better guests come to us from other platforms.

Let us know how check out goes and what transpires. Good luck!